


Train

by yangji



Series: Some Birds Aren't Meant to Be Caged [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, FF import, nejihina - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 11:44:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20275354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yangji/pseuds/yangji
Summary: Lips stained red, Hinata tells Neji the answer to a riddle. He had given up crying the day his father died.





	Train

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Поезд](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21071819) by [Furimmer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Furimmer/pseuds/Furimmer)

> Originally Written: August 6th, 2012  
To cater to my own desire to write a typical character death.  
And because of my obsession with Inception.

“Hinata!”

There was no time. Hinata had been lucky enough to move only a step to avoid the direct hit to her heart. There was no way she had enough luck to make it back to the medical tents.

But she was smiling as he lifted her into his arms. With their enemy weakened, the rest of their team could take care of it. Only Neji could take care of Hinata.

She reached up to comfort him, brushing her thumb against his bottom lip. He had given up crying the day he found out his father had died, but now that Hinata was comforting him in her death, his eyes betrayed him.

“N-Neji-niisan… Do you remember,” she closed her eyes at the effort to breathe, “the riddle from… the festival?”

_The pyre in the middle of the festival had yet to be lit. At midnight, all people of the village would help to light the fire that would burn well into the morning. They would toss in a simple scroll hand-picked for them by the Hokage and one that read a certain fortune. The advice was said to be life lasting and that anyone that followed it was sure to live a longer life than most shinobi._

_There was a frenzy of paper as people unrolled their scrolls._

_“Fate is determined by your own heart.”_

_Neji felt that he could have done without it. It was several years too late. He turned to Hinata, who had yet to look up from her own scroll, only to watch a dim blush bloom on her face._

_“It’s a riddle,” she explained in a confused voice when she noticed him watching her._

_“You are waiting for a train, one that will take you far away. You know where you hope that train will take you, but you cannot know for sure. Yet it does not matter. Why does it not matter?”_

_Neji waited patiently for the answer before he realized that Hinata was looking at him expectantly. Was the answer not on the scroll?_

_“Maybe all the trains at that station take the same route no matter what, so no matter where it goes, you know where you will eventually end up.”_

_She smiled and threw her scroll into the growing fire._

“I didn’t know the answer,” he mumbled. Why would Hinata mention something so trivial in these last moments? Though neither of them were ones for affection, these were not the words he wanted, needed to hear or give her now.

Her grip on his shirt tightened one last time as she pulled his ear down towards her lips.

“Because we’ll be together.”

_Together_. Her bloodied lips whispered the answer as their enemy’s reinforcements rained down above him.


End file.
